Red Star F.C. Blurs the Lines Between Art and Football
If a football jersey was to hang in an art gallery, what would it look like?
This is the question that David Bellion, an ex-Manchester United striker turned multi-hyphenate creative, asked himself in the early stages of developing the kit that Red Star will wear for the 2024/25 season.
And to produce football jerseys worthy of an art gallery, he assembled a crack team of creatives.
Bellion, who is the creative director of Red Star, enlisted the services of DRACO, a design studio founded by French actor César Domboy, artist Martin Ferniot, and Octave Marsal, a Central Saint Martins graduate and the youngest artist to design one of Hermes’ famous silk squares.
In collaboration with Kappa, the team looked to 19th-century engravings of the Château de Saint-Ouen to create football-inspired artworks that cover Red Star F.C.’s new away and third-choice kits.
The resulting graphics depict a football game being played, illuminated by either a green or a red-colored sky.
“I absolutely love the light work. That’s what struck me the most when Octave and Cesar showed [the new kits] to us,” David Bellion tells Highsnobiety. “It looks like there’s an illumination, a sky of fire. And at the same time, it’s super chic. It also looks like a masterpiece tapestry that you would hang on a wall.”
The two kits present a novel concept. They combine art and hi-tech sportswear with a finesse that can only be achieved by a football club as creative as Red Star.
Long before fashion and football were as inextricably linked as they are today, Red Star F.C. has straddled both worlds: back in 2017, its jerseys were stocked exclusively in two of Paris’ biggest boutiques, The Broken Arm and Colette, while its previous collaborative kits have involved names such as the streetwear label Daily Paper, Amsterdam-based fashion brand Lack of Guidance, and London-based design studio Acid FC.
Creating beautiful jerseys is only half of the job for David Bellion, however, his next task is assembling another team of creatives to produce an equally inventive campaign.
“I will never be for [creating] boring content just to sell jerseys. It’s better to propose something people love or hate than to have something average,” says Bellion. “Red Star should not be a people pleaser or make things to be approved. It’s better to be free from all that stress and build emotions in the hearts of people.”
The campaign for the 2024/25 kits is, certainly, anything but boring.
Artist Davide Trabucco brought his CONFORMI project to the campaign, a series where he combines two images. The pictures he collaged together come from Bellion’s creative agency, UNVEIL STUDIO (a leading Parisian AI Studio), and two photographers: Young Mamba and Clément Latil.
Photos in the campaign range from a baker creating dough in the retro Red Star F.C. home jersey (the only 2024/25 kit not designed in collaboration with DRACO) to Colm Dillane of KidSuper playing football on a concrete pitch — Dillane is a friend of Bellion's who wanted to be part of the photoshoot after they spoke about it at an event the night before.
The spontaneous nature of Dillane joining the campaign is a testament to Bellion’s freedom as a creative. Not one to over-intellectualize what he does, the 41-year-old is always willing to experiment and follow his gut.
“I think we need to push boundaries as much as we can because it’s only jerseys. We’re not inventing anything major for mankind,” says Bellion. “I always remember Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes saying to the audience ‘Relax, it’s only a joke.’ I feel the same way [about football jerseys], no matter whether the jersey is beautiful or weird.”
So, if you feel like complaining about Red Star's new uniform: relax, it's only a jersey.
